[James Midgley]

Hi David -- thanks very much for your comment and for reading. 'Twunk' is a curious word indeed; I was given two competing definitions for it by those I spoke to. On the one hand (and this seems the much more common definition), it seems to mean a muscular twink; on the other, but more interestingly to me, it's a twink in the past tense -- one who has twunk. So, a twink who's beginning to look a bit past it. For this poem's purposes, it doesn't much matter which is which!

Thanks, too, for adding your vote to the underworld river. More food for thought.

I'm glad you felt uplifted by the ending. Thank you again.